Page 35 of Knot Just A Fan

“Vance,” corrects Enzo.

“Whatever!” Ash shouts.

We all stare at each other. I rake my hands through my hair and amazingly, it doesn’t come back drenched in sweat. I feel like a fountain of perspiration.

“Let Vance down easily,” I say, trying to inject calm and reason into the conversation.

“Wait, I think the real issue here is you’ve been telling us all this time—all these goddamn years, Grayson—that Willow was your scent match. Are you trying to tell me—” Ronan says, a cold calculation in his voice, as though ideas and future lectures are already forming in that brain of his, “—that this was alie? How could you lie to us?”

I shake my head and look back out the window, as though I’ll still see her disappearing up the road. I feel like she’s still here in the room, so heavy is the air with her scent.Her scent. Her glorious, beachy, fresh air scent that I want to air my soul out in.

“I didn’t lie. I believed it. And then, I think, I told myself I believed it.” My voice drops to a hush, because in my mind’s eye, Willow and I are twenty-two again, making out in our winter coats on the sand at St. Andrews. Willow was born in Scotland but moved down south for school, and she often invited me up to visit her family. She smelled like sunshine on a winter’s day. The kind of chill that you eat up, because it sends you inside to a fire, to a bottle of whiskey, to music playing and warm blankets. Even in summer, she wascozy.Familiar.

“I believe you, mate,” Enzo says. “I was in love with Jemina. For many years. But it wasn’t meant to be, and when I realized that, I fought it.” Jemina was his long-time partner that he brokeup with just before we started playing together. She’d been with him through his first band. “I know a lot about that connection with someone you fall for, at that age.”

“Someone who’s been with you from the start. Someone you think you can trust,” I say. I sink back to my chair, lean over my knees and place my head in my hands. I feel like I could shower and I won’t ever get her scent out of my nostrils.

“You guys smell that, right?” I ask.

A chorus of agreement rises from my pack mates. Ash just says, “I don’t smell shit.”

Helpful.

“You’re our manager, Ash. So manage us out of this!” snaps Ronan.

“Hey,” Enzo says, “I think it might be your fault we’re in this position of our scent-match being jobless, unprotected, and staying behind here in England while we jet off to start this tour. Anything could happen to her. Anything!”

A note of hysteria slips into Enzo’s voice. I’ve never seen him lose it but I think he might be about it.

“I think I need to hear everything that happened. From the top.”

“Fine,” murmurs Ronan. “But know I did it because either we start this family for real—with whoever we’re meant to start it with—or I’m out.”

I swallow tightly. Ronan and Enzo are my brothers, as much as anyone could be. As an only child, I used to envy Ronan’s massive family, but over the years, knowing how much it’s hurt him to be on the outside looking in, I’ve changed my tune.

But I also want a family. Whether that means pups or not. I want an Omega to cement us. To protect. To serve. Who’ll serve us.

Who’ll love us. Because God knows we all have issues we’ve tried to patch ourselves. And someone looking in to say,It’s okay. I love you as you are—that would be everything.

If it can’t be Briella—if she’s too furious to ever consider us, if she evenknowswe’re scent-matched—then it has to be Willow. I can’t lose her, and Briella,andmy brothers in this pack. Because then I really will be like my dad.

CHAPTER 17

Ronan

After Briella took off,our six-hour rehearsal lasted a mere four hours. I could feel the ire of Grayson’s gaze stabbing into my side every time I tried to focus on my pedals or the tablet on the music stand in front of me. We got through three-quarters of the songs before I tore my headphones off, grabbed my bag, and said, “I need a break from this.”

“Oi, Sully,” Enzo said good-naturedly while adjusting a drum, using that stupid nickname he knows pisses me off. “We’ve still got work to do.”

“Don’t care. My head’s fucking pounding. Going to pack and take some painkillers. Sign me up for a double-session tomorrow.”

I don’t talk to Grayson at all as I slam the studio door and head up the stairs to my suite. I’m sure they discuss our worrying utter lack of chemistry in this practice. Everything by rote. Nothing incidental, no spontaneity, and in some cases, poor timing. I had two bass solos I totally bombed, and I missed several loops I was meant to play but no one said a word. Grayson grunted a few times but kept his cool. More so than me.

In my bedroom I crouch down and pull my suitcase from under my bed, and flop it open on the covers. Clothes go inwithout much thought—all the same stuff I wore in the last few months in LA.

After the clothes, my always-ready toiletry bag, pillowcases (gotta have my own when I travel), and bag of jumbled cables and electronics. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and grab the framed photo from my nightstand.

Instead of wrapping it and stuffing it in the case, though, I sit and hold it. A plain wooden frame houses a family photo of the ten of us O’Sullivans, six years before my parents’ SUV was side-swiped by a lorry as they were headed out on their first weekend alone together since I was a baby.

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